NC launches new system to track child welfare cases

WINSTON-SALEM — The second time appears to be the charm when it comes to North Carolina building a statewide system to assess and track children in its child welfare system.

The Partnership and Technology Hub, or PATH NC, launched in 15 counties on June 2 and has been running smoothly, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services officials said Wednesday in a news conference. Another 15 counties are training ahead of their launch on July 14. The rest of the counties have been put into groups and will begin using the new system after getting trained later this year.

The previous system, part of NC FAST, or North Carolina Families Accessing Services through Technology, failed miserably when it was introduced as a pilot in 2017. It was so glitchy that staff in counties testing the system lodged a number of complaints, and caseworkers even quit in frustration. Nonetheless, it was expanded to more counties in 2019. 

PATH NC, this new system, was created with input from workers across the state who will be using it — a big contrast to the earlier effort. 

“It's built around the way we actually work,” Tiffany Graves, senior social work supervisor with the Forsyth County Department of Social Services, said Wednesday. 

“Whether we're in the field, in the office or following up on an urgent situation, we have real-time access to the information we need on our laptops, on tablets, even on mobile devices. No more chasing down data in multiple systems, calling back to the office for information or waiting to get back to the desk.”

That has a huge impact on their work, she said. 

“It means we spend less time on paperwork, more time engaging with children and families,” Graves said. “We're not just managing cases. We're making informed, timely decisions that change lives. It isn't just a new system, it's a new way of doing our work.”

Phased rollout

North Carolina is one of only nine states in the U.S. where the child welfare system is supervised by the state but operated at the county level. That’s led to a patchwork of independent data systems in county departments of social services, who administer child welfare services. 

Nearly half of the counties still rely on manual processes and paper records, DHHS officials said. PATH NC will put everyone on one — computerized and networked — system for the first time.

“One of the things we're going to be able to do is now get data on what exactly is happening for our most vulnerable kids in North Carolina,” NCDHHS Secretary Dev Sangvai said Wednesday. “We're going to understand where we may need to deploy more services, and we can understand where there are best practices.”

The system will roll out in phases, with all 100 counties expected to be connected by the beginning of next year to use PATH NC for intake and assessment, Michael Leighs, NCDHHS deputy secretary for opportunity and well-being, told NC Health News earlier this week. In this second rollout, which is expected to begin in early 2026 and be completed by that summer, counties will begin using the case management portion of the system.

Once it is fully implemented, PATH NC will let county DSS offices handle intake, assessment, in-home services, foster care, adoption, financials, licensing and eligibility.

“Everything we need is going to be in one system,” Sharnese Ransome, executive director of the North Carolina Association of County Directors of Social Services, told NC Health News.

She said PATH NC streamlines the process, aligns technology with policies and allows better collaboration among the counties.

The first 15 counties trained to use the system are Alleghany, Avery, Caldwell, Cherokee, Clay, Forsyth, Gaston, Henderson, Iredell, Lee, Mitchell, Transylvania, Washington, Wilkes and Yancey.

The learning and adjusting doesn’t end with this initial rollout.

“We’re taking lessons learned from this Group 1 so we can make the process better,” for the next groups, Ransome said.

She also said creating this new system was a “very unified approach” between the counties and the state. She called the new system “groundbreaking” and said she is excited to see it go live statewide.

“It’s something we’ve needed forever,” she said. 

DHHS projected a cost of $65 million for the design, development, training and implementation of PATH NC.

‘Something we haven't had before’

PATH NC has features that drive better decisions around safety, said Lisa Cauley, director of human services for the North Carolina Division of Social Services, which is part of the state health department.

Workers will be able to create reports, track data using dashboards and dig deeper using analytics. The system, designed in collaboration with the cloud-based software company Salesforce, has a mobile app for easy access on the go.

“They love the mobile app. They love the dashboards,” Cauley said of her county-based colleagues. “The leadership can see where cases are in the process, and that's something we haven't had before.”

Leighs said the system is being described as “very user-friendly.”

“Folks really like the system in terms of ease of use and intuitiveness,” he said.

Graves said she has received a lot of positive feedback from Forsyth County staff, who have told her, “It’s so much easier. It’s so much faster.”

If workers have questions about policy, a chatbot can direct them to the right information. Later updates will include portals for providers and family members to access certain information, and there will be chatbots to help them navigate the system.

Foster parents will be able to submit their applications to be licensed through PATH NC.

“This is a tool to meet the needs of the child welfare workforce and address some of the concerns that we see,” Cauley said. “It's not just an IT [information technology] system.”

All counties will have to use the new system, connecting them for the first time and allowing information to be shared easily across the state.

Caseworkers will now be able to follow children if they move multiple times and have all of that child’s history at their fingertips, said Karen McLeod, who runs Benchmarks, an advocacy organization focused on child and family service providers. That continuity is important — in part because it means children won’t have to tell their story multiple times, forcing them to relive trauma, she said.

“That worker really has a clear picture of that child and their needs to be able to implement supports as soon as possible,” McLeod said.

PATH NC is still being built out. Future updates will allow it to connect to other systems, like Medicaid or the Department of Public Instruction, which will mean DSS staff can find or share information on children and families in the child welfare system.

McLeod said adding access to those systems is important.

“One of the primary indicators of a child in crisis is absenteeism,” she said. A drop in grades also can show that a problem is brewing, she added.

On Wednesday, Leighs thanked Forsyth County officials and other counties for volunteering to be part of the initial testing and rollout. “I think their input made it a great product,” he said.

Christa Smith, Forsyth County DSS director, said there were some technical glitches for some staff, but they were resolved within 24 hours. Forsyth was one of the counties still using paper, so this is a big change for them.

“To be in something that integrates us with other counties where they can see our work is really exciting,” she said.

Part of a larger overhaul

The caseload tracking system is just one part of a larger overhaul of the state’s child welfare system.

In a new white paper released Wednesday, state officials outlined their vision for transforming the system “to ensure better outcomes for children and families — no matter where they live across the state.”

NC DHHS said it has laid the groundwork with a series of moves, from creating a regional support system and adding new workforce training and supports, to investing in evidence-based prevention services and providing more support for families through programs like the Bridging Families foster program. 

In addition, the state’s historic investment in mental health services includes $80 million to transform the child behavioral health system. North Carolina’s foster care system has struggled for years with a series of issues, including children living in emergency rooms and sleeping on the floors of social services offices. DHHS has also had to take control of some failing county operations. 

Some of the programs funded through that investment will secure temporary placements for children with complex behavioral health needs, provide training modules for health providers, and work with mothers and children at risk of foster care to prevent their involvement in the child welfare system.

On the horizon is a Medicaid managed care plan designed to serve children and families involved in the child welfare system. It is expected to launch in late 2025.

Child advocates are excited about the passage of the Fostering Care in NC Act, which the General Assembly passed Wednesday afternoon, McLeod said. 

The bipartisan bill tackles multiple areas of the child welfare system, such as addressing court delays connected to terminating parental rights and expanding the state’s supervisory authority and ability to respond when counties need support or intervention, DHHS said in the white paper.

Ransome said there needs to be continued support on the front end to improve outcomes for the state’s children.

“If you don’t put the resources there to get support on the prevention side, then you do get more children coming into care,” she said.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.